Monkey Time: A Playful and Educational Story for Kids (Ages 4-8) About Learning to Count Minutes

by Michael Hall

Can you catch a minute? A monkey chases a minute in the rainforest in this clever, funny, and informational story about the concept of time from Michael Hall, the New York Times–bestselling and acclaimed author of Red: A Crayon’s Story.

Monkey Time stars a silly monkey and sixty minutes, and it is perfect for fans of Mo Willems’s Waiting Is Not Easy! and anyone learning about how time passes. Look for surprises in the pictures on every page!

Meet monkey. Monkey is very curious about the brightly colored—and very tasty-looking—minutes on the minute tree in his forest. But can he catch one before it disappears?

Playful, educational, and entertaining, this brightly illustrated book reinforces simple counting skills while introducing children to basic concepts about time, how time passes, and how time is measured. With illustrations full of engaging animals and a call-and-response text, and loads of rhythm, repetition, and humor, this is a great choice for family and story-time sharing.

Includes three pages of facts reinforcing the math concepts and describing the rainforest friends introduced in the story.

Genres: Picture Books, Animals, Mathematics, Childrens, Counting, Storytime, Juvenile

48 pages, Hardcover

First published February 26, 2019

About the author

Michael Hall is the author/illustrator of The New York Times bestseller, My Heart Is Like a Zoo, as well as the critically acclaimed Perfect Square, It’s an Orange Aardvark, Red: A Crayon’s Story, and Frankencrayon.

Before becoming a children’s author, Michael was an award-winning graphic designer whose work — including graphic identities for the City of Saint Paul, Macalester College, the Minnesota Historical Society, and the Hennepin County Medical Center — has been widely recognized for its simple and engaging approach.

Michael lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Becky · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm a fan of Hall's illustration style, but he really missed the mark here. The book is about telling time... but it's not. It's not teachy enough to actually teach you anything, so it just reads like a crappy picture book. If you haven't purchased it for your library yet... I'd pass.

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great 'telling time' book for young children!

[Shaye Miller]

The is one of the more unusual books I’ve read. Monkey appears to be sitting in circular tree where little orange balls keep popping out at the top. Each orange ball equals a minute. And every time his arms circle around the tree, another one pops out. The entire time, the orange minute balls are teasing the Monkey:

“Ha-ha. You missed me”
“…you are a slowpoke”
“we are running circles around you, Monkey!”

When Monkey finally catches an orange minute, he starts to eat it. But then all the minutes sport wings and happily fly away. Not even joking. LOL But alas, we need books of all types and this one could be a fun addition to math lessons on telling time. In the back matter, there’s a section on Monkey’s Rainforest Friends, sharing more details about other animals that can be found in a tropical rainforest. And truthfully, it wasn’t until I read that page that I went back through the book and noticed there are other animals hiding on the pages. So there’s some environmental science cross-over that can be used in here. The last page talks more specifically about calculating time with seconds, minutes, hours and days. The artwork in this book consists of digitally combined collages of painted and cut paper.

For more children's literature, middle grade literature, and YA literature reviews, feel free to visit my personal blog at The Miller Memo!

[Elisabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

The concept of time is tricky enough -- a more straight forward, less punny approach would be preferable

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like Michael Hall's stuff. This one's a little thin and a little silly but I think it's a fun intro to time.

[Sarah Wyatt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book about telling time, but it took me a few pages to actually figure that out. It's cute, but I'm not sure how I would be able to use it in a storytime.

[Jj · Rating 2 out of 5]

More confusing than anything.

[Syntha Green · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know that this is a good for anything but the barest of introductions to the fact that minutes make up hours but kids will laugh when monkey tries to eat a minute.

[Kris · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love Orange Aardvark. Had to buy 3 copies. Kids always asked for it after I read it. But this one fell flat and just doesn't have the same rhythm and flow.

[Edward Sullivan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Silly and colorful but not entirely successful attempt to introduce the concept of time.

[Alyx Campbell · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book doesn't make sense as far as the time goes. And why a monkey? Unless you have a really strong, compelling reason that the character be anthropomorphized as a monkey, choose something else.

[Erin Buhr · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an unconventional book about telling time. It works on the concept of counting minutes by having a monkey try to "catch a minute" as it races around a tree. Cleverly constructed and gorgeously executed, this is a great book for kids who get the general concept of telling time but are ready to look beyond hour and half hour. Full of Hall's bright cut paper collages and rainforest animals, Hall once again proves he's able to teach concepts in a fun, engaging way.

[Lori · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cute story hour book!

[Lara · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love the illustrations (Michael Hall always has such great color and texture and details). But as a Telling Time book, it was confusing at best. Time's a hard enough concept to get the hang of without little orange minutes literally running around you and jeering. As an abstract book about time, older picture book readers might get a kick out of some of the jokes, but to be used for actually learning about time? Not one I'd recommend.

As mentioned though, I did like the illustrations and the details there. Check out the notes section at the end with the different animals shown and how they move through the different illustrations and what they get up to. Overall, though, Hall has better books out there.

[Elaine Fultz, Teacher Librarian, MLS · Rating 3 out of 5]

An odd but fun presentation about telling time. A monkey is in its tree with twelve “branches” in clock hour/minute configuration. Little round guys with skinny legs take the minute positions and run Monkey through an entire hour cycle. Hall’s signature style collage art is always inviting (Red is my favorite) and the concept is clear. Bonus animals are featured in the background of Monkey’s rainforest scenes and additional information about the animals (including sloths and poison dart frogs) and about time (60 sec + 1 minute, 60 min = 1 hour, etc.) follow the simple text.

[Kelsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Age: K-2nd grade
Math: Telling time

As the monkey's arm chases the yellow dots around the clock, they collect around the tree/circle to visualize 60 minutes in an hour. They dots then fly away, giving room for another set of 60 minutes for the monkey to chase. Kind of weird that the monkey's second hand doesn't move by the time all of the minutes have gathered around the clock.

Most reviews have been confused by the concept but haven't explained how they're confused or what they're concerned about--so I'm not sure how this will actually fly for kids.

[Jillian · Rating 2 out of 5]

A neat concept, but doesn't do as well at the "teaching time" part as it wants to. Also, I was startled to see the list of animals in the back, because I was so distracted by the monkey chasing minutes, I didn't even notice there were other critters.

However, where it fails as an educational book about time management, it succeeds as a chilling allegory for a toddler mom trying desperately to catch a minute to herself after spending 59 chasing a little one here, there, and everywhere.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m trying to decide if this book is supposed to be teaching kids to tell time. The monkey chases minutes but he never catches them until the hour is up. At the end, is included some infographics on keeping time, and information about the animals illustrated within. I really like the illustrations, but I don’t think the book successfully gets its point across, since I can't really determine the point.
#BBRC #AtoZofpicturebooks

[Kiran · Rating 2 out of 5]

So this is one of my 4 year olds favorite books at the moment. It's a book supposedly about how time and clocks work but I think it's an epic fail in that department. A whole lot of explaining on my part trying to make sense of it for my little one.

That being said there is something about the seconds represented by little round blobs with faces and feet that my kid seems to love.

[Clarissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

A strange book about telling time. If you read the text on the front flap of the dust jacket the book made sense, if you didn't then the book was slightly confusing. The art is great, and once the reader understands what is going on in the book it may help children understand telling time the old fashioned analog way.

[Dwayna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read some of the other reviews and just wanted to clarify. This book introduces the concept of minutes - counting them and their layout on a clock face. It's not about comprehensively reding a clock. The jungle animal illustrations also visually show the progression of time. My kid and I found a lot to talk about and ways to interact with the book.

[Katie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't really pick up on the whole time telling thing until way too far into the book. I think it would generally go over kids' heads, though they might like the fun of monkey not being able to catch the minutes.

[Pam · Rating 2 out of 5]

The paper cut illustrations are the only redeeming factor of this book about time. Monkey chases minute after minute and finally catches the very last one in an hour.
No real information except on the final page.
No story for a child to relate to as they read the book.

[Molly · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a book about telling time. It presents minutes as little creatures that a monkey is trying to catch. While the illustrations are nice, I find the story itself kind of confusing in the way it presents time. I don't think I would use this to teach kids about telling time.

[Robin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too reminiscent of the illustrations of Eric Carle. Might even be accused of ripping off his style. Somehow readers are supposed to understand how to tell time from this storytelling mess but I seriously doubt they got anything out of this mess.

[Vicki · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sorry - this book is totally confusing to me (a grown-up). I know it’s about time and seconds, but I really don’t get the idea of this book and I wonder who is the intended audience???

I gave this book 1 star for its good illustrations.

[Melanie Hetrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think the idea of this book was to introduce the concept of telling time. And the author does a better job of that on the last 2 page spread of the book. However, the "story" will be lost on children.

[Ash · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like how this children’s book explores what it means to focus too much on a future goal that you forget to enjoy the minute, the moment you are in right now. But I definitely think this concept could have been explored more. It felt like it ended abruptly.

[Sarah Threlkeld · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun and clever way to teach young readers about time passing.

[Amanda · Rating 1 out of 5]

Horrible and disturbing. Forced concept. Travesty of a picture book. The monkey creeped me out. Go ahead! Gobble that minute down, sir! Annoying little, bugger!